CHRISTUS Health - Progress through Integration and Service Delivery

Paul Generale is the executive vice president at CHRISTUS Health, an international Catholic non-profit health system with over 60 hospitals and 400 ambulatory centers. The health system has locations in the United States (Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico) and three Latin American countries. Paul Generale works from the system’s Dallas, Texas location. He became executive vice president in 2015 to steer enterprise wide strategy.

Since 2013 CHRISTUS has been on a path of integration, moving from a holding company with disparate assets to an integrated one with centralized functions. As part of the move, CHRISTUS standardized financial and analytics operations across its services, moved its senior team from three corporate offices to one, and developed a culture that emphasized agile, quality service in the communities it had a presence in.

While integrating, CHRITUS doubled down on the services it offered at local levels, incorporating essential services where they were missing. For example, where it lacked ambulatory surgery services, it provided them and where it did not have integrated physician networks, it built them out. So rather than growing by acquiring hospitals and clinics, CHRISTUS looked inward and delivered more value to community residents, meeting more of their healthcare needs. As a result of these efforts, the health system has experienced tremendous growth since 2013, more than doubling its assets from $4 billion to $8.5 billion.